


Second Chances

by Ganymeme



Series: Differences [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, mention of alcohol and drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ganymeme/pseuds/Ganymeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Landsmeet's aftermath, a second conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

The rain fell heavy and cold. The rambling harbour road had turned into a slick mire of black mud and salt-stained boards hours before. Torches guttered under shallow eaves and anyone caught outside hurried as fast as they dared, heads bent against the lashing rain. Up and down the waterfront taverns and gambling houses were full to bursting. The crowds trapped within were raucous, chaotic even for Denerim.

The woman hurrying through the rain and the wind, wrapped in an oilcloth cloak, thought the nightly racket sounded feverish and desperate. Darkspawn had been sighted just two days upriver, was the rumour, and refugees were flooding into the city by the hour. The harbour held few ships, but still the drinking dens and whorehouses were packed. 

She ducked from door to door, scanning the crowds contained within each tilted, sodden building with a practiced eye. The golden glow from each opened door illuminated pale white skin and damp strands of red hair. Her mouth was drawn tight and her brow knit with worry. Finally, in a doorway below the sign of a lewdly winking rat, she stopped. Her tense shoulders slumped and for the briefest of moments the woman leaned wearily against the doorpost.

“Close the damned door!” The drunken bellow came from the table nearest the door, where a motley group of people – brown-skinned humans, an oddly nautical-looking dwarf, a grey-haired elf in a patchwork coat – clustered around a card game.

Leliana stepped inside, letting the door slam shut behind her. One of the human women at the table shouted something lewd, but between the drunken slur and a thick Tevinter accent, Leliana couldn’t make it out. She ignored it, in any case, and wove her way neatly through the sticky, swaying crowd. Many people in the tavern were standing, pressed shoulder to shoulder, and barmaids elbowed their way through the throng, voices and tankards raised high.

But Leliana made her way to a table in a corner of the tavern. Well lit by a torch on the wall above it, with an excellent view of the door, it should have held a boisterous crowd playing at dice or cards. Instead only one chair remained, back to the wall, and one lone man was seated in it. He was armed and armoured, hardly a rare sight in Denerim even before the Blight, but still the other people were avoiding him.

He didn’t even look particularly threatening, Leliana mused, as she neared the table. If anything he looked... mopey. _Triste_. But then, she was used to him and his moods. She knew that the blond man, knew that although his sulky, red-eyed glare was fit to set the tabletop ablaze he was no more likely to lash out with fists or blade than the Empress was to eat gruel. A yard from the table the crowd thinned and Leliana stopped.

She took a moment to consider the scene before her, to look at it as a stranger would. Leliana knew Alistair was young, a few scant months past his twenty-first nameday, but looking at him now... From the sharp, starved angles of his face and the week’s shadow of scruff to the dark hollows around bloodshot eyes and the way even seated and slumped over he seemed as taught as a drawn bowstring... He looked well past that score of years.

Leliana sighed heavily and looked about for a chair or stool to snag. The past year had been hard on them all. She saw bloated corpses and blackened fields when she closed her eyes, and woke at night in cold sweat, convinced there were still leagues of rock above her head and darkspawn all around her. How the Wardens, plagued with so much worse, had not gone mad, she had no idea.

Truly, she thought as she watched a drunk slip off a stool and into a puddle of sour ale, when all of that was considered, it was a miracle that their two Wardens hadn’t had a falling out sooner. Alistair’s geniality and Mahariel’s reserve were perhaps all that had saved them.

She rescued the stool and dragged it up to the table. She installed herself on Alistair’s right, her back to the other corner wall.

Leliana waited.

Alistair dragged his glare up from the tankard and met her eyes squarely. Good. Not so drunk he couldn’t focus, then.

“I’m not going back,” he said flatly.

Leliana shrugged. “As you like,” she replied, smoothing her face into something placid and non-confrontational.

Alistair’s glare sharpened, his eyes dark with suspicion. Leliana smiled pleasantly.

“Is it good?” She asked.

“What?” Alistair blinked. Leliana laughed.

“The ale! Is it good? Perhaps I will get some.”

“Oh, er,” Alistair glanced down at the mug in his hands as though he’d just noticed it.

“Not really,” he admitted. She sighed in disappointment and watched a plump elven barmaid bob and weave between drunkards, toppled chairs, and spilled drinks. For a long moment the silence between her and Alistair was filled only with the tavern’s roar and a painfully out of tune lute. This would be tricky, Leliana suspected.

Finally, as a triumphant bellow flecked with loser’s groans went up from a far corner, Alistair spoke.

“You- you just came for a drink?”

Leliana shrugged again, watching him from the corner of her eye. “What else would I come for?”

“I, well.” Alistair swallowed and stared down into his mug as though hoping the alcohol would speak for him.

“I thought maybe, maybe that- that she had sent you.”

Leliana felt a lump grow in her own throat. Ah, sacred songs, he sounded so miserable! 

“Aaaah,” Leliana exhaled quietly and let that sympathy seep into her eyes. Looking directly at him – though Alistair still stared at his drink – she said, “Kylare, you mean?” 

That got a flicker of a scowl, there and then gone. “Well who else would I mean?” Alistair snapped. “Morrigan?” 

Leliana giggled. “Perhaps! Can you even see Morrigan in a place like this?” 

“Yes,” he replied instantly, “- and if she wasn’t lurking in a corner doing her whole ‘I am a noble swamp-queen and better than you peasants’ thing she’d be a little rat – or maybe a big rat, yeah actually she’d be a big rat – nipping at people’s...” 

Leliana laughed as Alistair muzzily rambled on, staring out over the crowd. His hands were wrapped around the tankard, knuckles white, and Leliana could see the tight, trembling set of his jaw even as his gaze misted over into one of deep contemplation. She spoke before he could lose himself completely. 

“But why would you think Kylare had sent me?” Ah, it was like singing, really, when she hit the perfect note – curious, but innocent, and light enough to avoid suspicion. 

Alistair visibly jerked. Some emotion Leliana couldn’t quite identify twisted at his mouth and drew a shadow over his gaze. He jerkily raised the ale to his lips, swallowed once, twice. The mug met the table with a heavy thump. 

“The Landsmeet,” he finally said, voice low. Leliana leaned in, resting her head on one hand. When Alistair looked up, he finally met her eyes. 

“You were there,” he whispered, “You saw. You _heard_. She- she _spared_ him. After all of this- after everything, after the _slavers_ -! Andraste’s fucking funeral pyre, but she _honoured_ him and I-!”

There were tears in his eyes, Leliana saw, and sorrow and rage hot in his throat. Alistair blinked hard and swiped roughly at his eyes. 

“You understand don’t you? Don’t you, Leli? You’ve always understood, when everyone was all- when they-“ He shook his head, despair writ large and stealing his words. 

Leliana forbore to mention all the times they hadn’t agreed, all the times she hadn’t understood – starting, if she remembered rightly, with his laughter at the peace she had found in the Chantry’s silence. 

“Of course,” she said, because what else could she say? “You want revenge, yes?” 

“Yes!” Alistair cried out. None save the elven barmaid Leliana had spotted before so much as looked their way. And the barmaid – Leliana could almost hear the calculations in her head – one man, one woman, one drink, no danger – she dismissed them, turning away. She hushed Alistair all the same. Attention was unwanted, even with Anora holding the city.

“Yes!” He repeated softer, but no less fervently. “Of course I want revenge! And I thought she did too! And then she- she-“ he gestured jerkily with one hand before burying his face in it. 

“Why?” Leliana asked. 

She got a glimpse of blue eye through Alistair’s fingers and his voice was muffled when he spoke. 

“What?” 

“Why did you think that? Had she spoken to you of revenge?” 

“I- well. Yes?” He raised his head and stared at her. Leliana smiled crookedly. 

“You don’t sound very sure of that,” she said gently. Alistair sighed. 

“I know, I mean... I thought she had? Back- back in the Wilds, before Lothering, we talked about. I think. All this time, I just...” 

“Assumed she agreed with you?” 

The sharp glare he sent her way was softened by the sulky pout of his bottom lip. Leliana bit her tongue to keep from smiling – now was not the time to tease him about looking cute. 

“You think I’m being stupid, don’t you?” Alistair demanded. Leliana sighed. Damn. He always was too perceptive for his own good. 

“No, Alistair,” she said, “I don’t think you’re being stupid. I-“

“Well what do you think, then?” He demanded again, his voice tight. 

Leliana sat up and crossed her arms. “If you’d let me finish, I would tell you!” Internally, she winced at her own words – her accent had thickened as she spoke, a sure tell at genuine emotion. 

Alistair scowled and sat back. “Fine,” he said. 

“I don’t think you’re being stupid,” Leliana repeated, though her voice was not so soft as it had been. Perhaps that had been in error – Alistair did so hate being coddled. Blunt honesty, perhaps, was the better choice – or as much honesty as she thought he could bear. 

“I think you loved Duncan very much, and the other Wardens, your friends, your family. And I think it only natural for you to desire revenge, to want to see Loghain suffer, to pay in blood for your own suffering, and Duncan’s.” 

Alistair shifted in his chair, planting his feet and drawing one arm in to his chest protectively. Uncomfortable, Leliana judged, but he watched her still, frowning darkly. Uncomfortable but listening. 

“But?” He said when she paused. She smiled. So impatient these Fereldans! No speaker of Alaric ever seemed to truly appreciate the art of a conversation, the pauses and pacing. It was moments like these that Leliana was reminded of how Orlesian she truly could be. Though, truth be told, she had paused not for dramatic effect but because she was uncertain how to continue. She could take two tacks, here... 

“But you may yet get your wish. Riordan says he may not survive the Joining?” She let it curve up into a question, drawing a grudging nod from Alistair. 

“Yeah, but-“

“But?” 

“But how could she even offer for him to be a Warden! Joining the Wardens, it’s... it’s... it’s an honour! He hates the Wardens, always has! Even before Ostagar, he hated us!” Alistair’s voice was rising again, fierce with emotion. Once more, Leliana shushed him and cast a wary eye out over the crowd. A pair of dwarves appeared to be dancing – or maybe duelling – on a tabletop, however, and no one was watching them. 

“You think it is an honour,” she said, “But does Kylare?” 

Alistair stared at her blankly. “Yes?” He finally offered. 

Leliana pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow skeptically. 

“Why wouldn’t she?” Alistair asked, but before Leliana could reply he said, “I mean, the Wardens saved her life- without the Joining-.” He stopped abruptly. 

Leliana burned to ask. She was trained in interrogation, for all that those skills had gone unused since- well. Since. And Alistair was not trained to resist. But no, Grey Warden secrets were not what was important here, as intriguing as they might be. 

“Saved her life, but took her from her clan, her home, everything she knew. She has not said it in so many words, but I doubt very much that she thinks it an honour – or that the honour of the Order could be sullied by allowing one more flat-eared human to join.” Leliana could almost hear the woman’s voice, Dalish burr thick, as she snarled about humans – about shemlen – in words harsher than those.

Alistair stared at her, and Leliana resisted the urge to hold her breath. She hadn’t meant to take the conversation here, but that was the trouble with talking with friends. Conversations tended to... veer. Finally Alistair sighed and shook his head. 

“I hate it when you make sense,” he said gloomily. Leliana laughed. 

“But!” He glared at her, “But I still don’t think its right! He should be dead – very, very, completely, dead. Not alive. Not breathing. Not a Warden.” 

Leliana smiled. “No? You don’t think there is a sort of, ah, poetic irony to it?” 

“Poetic what-now?” 

Leliana huffed. “Alistair! I know you are educated. Irony. _Poetic_ irony. Does it not seem fitting to you, at all, that a man who fought against the Grey Wardens every step of the way should see his end with them? In Orlais, it is said that the reason criminals may be conscripted is because being a Grey Warden is a death sentence – just delayed a decade or two, and at the hands of darkspawn.” 

Alistair scowled and turned back to his drink, resettling both hands around it. “No,” he said with a frown and a pout, “No it doesn’t seem ‘fitting’.” 

But his heart didn’t sound in it, Leliana thought, and Alistair was unexpectedly... somber. She had expected a quip about the (quite literal) gallows humour, at least, even with the mood he was in. But the fight seemed to have gone out of him, if just a little, and he was once more searching for answers in the bottom of the tankard. 

She watched a moment longer, but he didn’t seem inclined to speak, so with a shrug, Leliana turned her attention to the whole of the tavern. The past week had been hectic and bloody, even by their standards, but it was so very delightful to be back in a city again. Travelling was lovely, but there were very few people to watch in the Blight-stricken Bannorn. 

The barmaid – that same elf woman, who appeared to have staked out this part of the tavern – appeared at her elbow. Leliana was tempted to wave her off – ale was unappealing at the best of times, let alone this late at night in this rundown a place. But she bought a mug, just to be polite. When it arrived she took a sip, grimaced, and set it aside. 

Several patrons were snoring under tables by now, with the night wearing on, and those still standing were louder, the laughter more slurred and more desperate. This was not a night of merry drinking and gaming, not with the bread prices creeping ever higher and the darkspawn ever closer. Most here were drinking to forget, looking for oblivion at the bottom of a mug, if Leliana was any judge. Most – but not that motley group she had seen when entering. The oddly piratical dwarf woman was whirling the elderly elf in a drunken dance that Leliana thought looked vaguely Rivaini and their human companions were cheering them on. 

“I’ve a berth on their ship, if I want it.” 

Leliana jumped. “ _Pardonne_?” she blurted out. 

The first smile of the night curled Alistair’s mouth ruefully. “The Rivaini crew by the door, with the elf and dwarf. They sale on the morning tide. I’ve a berth with them, if I want it.” 

That... was entirely unexpected. Kylare – or, more precisely, Zevran – had sent Leliana to determine where Alistair had gotten himself to, to determine what he intended. She had never expected he would be quite so efficient about leaving. That he was drinking was no surprise, but to have found a way out of a city full of refugees desperate to leave? Leliana shook her head, astonished. 

“So, do you want it?” She asked, rather than say any of that. Really, she shouldn’t be as surprised as she was. Alistair was hardly incompetent, for all his antics and jests. And complete inability to mend socks. 

Alistair looked down into his tankard and shrugged. 

“Will he live, do you think?” He asked, quietly. 

Leliana bit her lip. “I could not say,” she replied. 

Alistair sighed gustily and sat back, running his hands through his hair. It stuck up wildly in his wake. 

“I don’t like him,” he said flatly, “I _won’t_ like him. I won’t fight with him or eat with him or talk with him or- or- anything.” 

Briefly, Leliana had a very vivid memory of a similar declaration – but made far more passionately, by an Alistair who had looked years younger, face reddened and freckled by summer sun. But Zevran had been a rather different case, all things considered. 

“So why come back at all?” She asked, and then winced. Ah, Maker’s breath! To say such a thing now! But he didn’t scowl as she expected, or draw himself up in affront, or stalk off in a huff. Instead his gaze turned distant and another of those small, rueful smiles quirked the corner of his mouth. 

“There’s a Blight, isn’t there? Some Warden I’d be, if I ran off on that.” 

Outside, the rain had stopped. 

**Author's Note:**

> 'Alaric' is what I've decided to call the language Fereldans - and probably at least the southern Free Marches - speak. Because calling it "common" is dumb and makes me cry.


End file.
